The fight against climate change: a burning international issue

Résumé du document

Climate change is an environmental issue that is now recognized by almost the entire scientific community in the world. It affects the entire planet. The climate is influenced by both natural and human factors. However, it's been proven that human activities are responsible for a wide range of global warming caused by greenhouse gase emmisions associated with massive human activities, particularly transports and industries. The temperature has increased by 0.6% during the last century.

People are aware of the fact that if nothing is done to reduce global warming on global level, climate change could pose a serious threat to the population growth which could lead to an increase in the number of environmental disasters such as cyclones and storms and also result in significant meltdown of the glaciers that would cause a rise in the sea level from 10 to 20 centimeters.

Such a phenomenon would be sufficient to reduce a big part of the low-lying land masses and cause major floods. Some countries may even be wiped off the map because of these floods, "even a partial melting [of Greenland] would cause a one-meter (three-foot) rise. Such a rise would have a devastating impact on low-lying island countries, such as the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, which would be entirely submerged. " On the other hand, due to the rise in temperature, some other states could suffer from water penury.

We can predict the huge problems that would arise on the international level. These consequences could indeed lead to a massive amount of "environmental refugees" trying to move in other countries, and border conflicts. Not to mention the disappearing of entire nations and cultures because of their submersion.

Besides, storms would probably be more frequent, which would cause serious damages in numerous countries and the agricultural sector is more likely to be affected by this climate change. Another serious concern is that, the entire ecosystem could be destroyed. According to the magazine "Nature", by the year 2050, a million species could disappear .

As predictions about the consequences of global climate change have become more and more alarming, countries have started thinking about the ways to deal with it. The problem is that the fight against climate change requires the cooperation of every state in the world, which is obviously really hard to obtain, since each country has its own laws, rules and regulations.

One can wonder whether the international regulation on greenhouse gases emission could be implemented, because it is assured that each country is subjected to a supranational regulation. The current situation of the Kyoto protocol is a good example since the United States, which is the second largest polluter in the world, have still not have ratified it (though they have signed it). Unfortunately, it seems that it has turned into a dead-end.

Extraits

[...] The fight against climate change: a burning international issue Climate change is an environmental issue that is now recognized by almost all of the scientific community in the world. It is affecting the whole planet. Climate is influenced by both natural and human factors. But it's been proven that human activities are to a wide extent responsible for global warming, because of a huge emission of greenhouse gases related to human activities, and particularly transports and industries. The temperature on earth has increased in the past century. [...]

[...] A global consensus on how to combat climate seems very unlikely to happen. In 2007, the United Nations launched talks about a successor to Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The deal to replace it will start in November 30th 2009 in Copenhagen, and this agreement needs to be really significant. The rich countries (especially the U.S.) will have to commit themselves to clear GHG emission cut targets, as well as the big emerging countries. Whether or not there will be a deal in Copenhagen may rely a lot on what will happen before in the U.S., the E.U. [...]

[...] Besides, Barack Obama said he was planning to introduce a cap-and-trade system in the U.S. India has also ratified Kyoto protocol, but as a developing country, it clearly has not the same targets to reach than the industrialized countries which agreed with it. Indeed, as Kyoto Protocol states: share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social and development needs”, meaning that India, China and other emerging countries don't have to abide by the same binding regulations because they were far from being the main responsible countries for GHG emissions during the industrialization period that occurred before the treaty. [...]

[...] have signed but not ratified this treaty. The U.S., which is responsible for about 25% of the world's GHG emissions, was supposed to reach a target of a reduction. Though, one of the first decisions that George W. Bush has made after being elected for the first time, was to formally withdraw his country from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, by refusing to ratify it on federal level. His argument was that this commitment would weaken the U.S. industry and economy, and that big emerging countries such as China and India were not imposed the same target, whereas they also rejected a huge amount of GHGs. [...]

[...] “Getting progress on climate change in these three places would be tough at the best of times, and the year ahead looks like being one of the worst of times. A substantive deal in Copenhagen therefore looks unlikely; but the world's leaders are not likely to give up trying to save the planet there and then.[15]” Anyway, even if this kind of deal isn't reached, we saw that countries had also taken national steps to struggle against global warming and climate change, which may not be sufficient but represents a good start. [...]